To the editor: Raising students who do well on reading tests is not the same thing as raising students who like to read (“The nation’s students are deep in a reading recession. Here’s how L.A. and California fit in,” May 13). In fact, it is quite the opposite. We have an entire generation of students who have come to believe that the reason to read is to answer the teacher’s questions, to perform well on awful standardized exams.
Schools actively work to make kids hate reading, and then when their students perform poorly on tests, we blame the children. The research is clear: Kids who read the most read the best, so shouldn’t we shift classroom practices by first asking what we can do to make kids love reading? The answers to this question are where meaningful reform lies.
Kelly Gallagher, Santa Ana
This writer is the author of “Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It.”
